


i know i love you, and you love the sea

by mandyfuckinmilkovich



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Blood, Tumblr Fic, basically mentions everything that happens in the show, fic doesn't make sense, mentions of abuse, mentions of bruises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 19:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandyfuckinmilkovich/pseuds/mandyfuckinmilkovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You want to be different?"</p><p>"Sometimes."</p>
            </blockquote>





	i know i love you, and you love the sea

Ian’s got a lot of shit to say. About everything and everyone.

Mostly his family. School and Mandy and English and Linda too. But his family. He loves them but jesus. He talks Mickey’s ear off and yeah sure, Mickey’ll listen or sometimes when he really, really doesn’t want to, he’ll shove a hand down Ian’s jeans to shut him up.

The thing is this: Ian loves them but he hates them sometimes. He respects Fiona and is jealous of Lip and is proud of Debbie and worries about Carl and just loves Liam. He loves them and puts up with them and wants them but there’s something suffocating. Something about being the middle, the bastard, the one no one came back for. Because Frank comes back for Fiona, Monica comes back for Liam and Lip and Debbie and Carl. And Ian? He gets a stranger for a biological dad and a mom who doesn’t give a fuck.

"He doesn’t want to know me and I really don’t want to know him. I’m just… pissed off about it all the time."

Mickey bites his lip, watching Ian, watching his body slump and his shoulders tense, looking tired and old, something crossing over his face and eyes, sad and dark.

"Sorry," he mutters, looking at Mickey’s face. Mickey never knows how to operate when this shit happens, only half shrugs and bumps Ian’s shoulder, mumbling that he’s an idiot, making him smile.

Mickey carries that smile not knowing how to do anything else.

//

When Mickey was a kid, he used to run away a lot. Only for a few hours, only ever to the park or the trees that lined the end of his block or the gas station down the road. He’d just leave the house and no one would ever know or ask where a 6 year old was going. He’d just pretend he was leaving all of it behind and never going back. He’d pretend he could do anything.

Mom always ran away too. It was different with her, she’d be gone for weeks or months, once a whole year when he was about to turn 9. She always came back smiling, looking awake and warm and soft. Nothing like how she left. Mickey always wanted her to take him with her. And maybe they’d just never go back. But that never happened and the park got smaller and the trees stopped being forbidden to him and the gas station smelt like piss all the time.

Ian thinks he can do anything. Mickey thinks maybe he can too. Ian thinks and talks bigger than Mickey can allow himself. His dreams fill Mickey’s entire room. Ian wants to run away, go to West Point, go to the army, never look back, be somebody. Ian doesn’t think he’s anybody. Ian’s the middle in a family of middles. Mickey thinks he’s someone though, when he smiles or laughs or fits his fingers with Mickey’s. That’s something. And Mickey feels like someone when it happens.

And he doesn’t have to run away to find it.

//

"You really don’t remember do you?"

Ian’s back is to him and he’s pulling on his boxers and jeans hurriedly, stuffing his foot into a shoe and kicking Mickey’s shit out of the way to find where the other one ended up.

Mickey’s doing fuck all, lazying about in bed, enjoying the afterglow and Ian’s smell on his pillow.

“‘member what?”

"Little league."

"Sure I do."

"Okay, who do you remember? And don’t even pretend you remember me."

Mickey grabs for a lighter and cigarette. “Fuck you and your twenty questions.”

Ian grins and climbs back in next to Mickey, swiping the cigarette out of Mickey’s hand. Inhales deep and blows smoke out slowly. Bites his lip the way he does when he’s not sure how to continue. Continues anyway.

"Wish you did. You were good."

Mickey snorts, unable to look away from Ian’s face, his eyes bright and fixed on Mickey’s. 

"You were. You… I don’t know if you loved it but. You were good. You hated everyone, Coach most of all. You fucking hated being on first base but when you got up to bat, you were good. Ran so fast for someone so short."

Mickey pinches his side and Ian laughs and gets back up, making a pleased sort of squawk when he finds his other shoe.

Mickey lies there for the rest of the day after Ian leaves for work, thinking about red hair and baseballs and loving something he doesn’t remember. How much he fucking hated being told to stand still when he could be doing other things, moving and being part of something and running. Thinking that he ran so fast from something but maybe also to something.

//

"I hate your dad," Ian mumbles, wiping Mickey’s lip on the sleeve of his jacket and yeah okay, join the fucking club.

Mickey rolls his eyes but holds Ian’s wrist, his thumb rubbing the skin and freckles gently, Ian’s forehead pressed to his, their eyes not meeting.

//

Sometimes Ian looks at him. When it’s really quiet and hot and they’re drunk, too drunk to even fool around just for the hell of it. They’ll lie in Mickey’s bed and smoke and keep drinking and there won’t be any sounds except Mickey breathing out and Ian breathing in, the scratching on skin, a thumb on the side of a mouth.

Ian looks at him through the hazy clouds of smoke and it’s so soft, Mickey can barely breathe.

"Do you ever wonder what it’d be like?"

Mickey almost rolls his eyes, Ian gets way too deep or personal or whatever when they’re like this and Mickey tries distracting him by running his fingers over his boxers and pressing his face into neck.

Ian’s fingers trail up his arm, leaving goosebumps, and the run through his hair. “What we’d be like if things were different? If… if they were different?”

The ‘they’ in question doesn’t really matter to Mickey. The ‘they’ is Terry, Monica, Frank, Clayton. The ‘they’ is them. The ‘they’ isn’t Ian or him.

"We’d be different," Ian’s breath is hot and sour on his forehead and he trails his fingers down Mickey’s arm.

"You want to be different?" Mickey’s heart catches in his throat when Ian’s palm meets his and their fingers fit together. Ian is quiet, Mickey is quiet, no sounds except for heavy breathing and his heart hammering in his ears. He’s about to drop off to sleep when the reply is whispered into his hair.

"Sometimes."

//

Mickey wonders after that what it would be like. If they were different. If they weren’t them. If he’d be happier or smarter or have two parents or not as many brothers.

If Ian had gone to live with his real dad and never known little league or his family or Mandy. Or him.

The thing is this: Ian is pretty great. And Mickey thinks Ian is pretty great in ways that make him hard, ways that make him want to be around Ian all the time, ways that he’s never really felt like confronting until Ian’s smudged fingerprints were left behind on the glass back at the visitor’s room in juvie.

And the other horrifying thing: He doesn’t want them to be different. He doesn’t want Ian to have nothing to complain about. He doesn’t want Ian to have nothing to do with his family, he doesn’t want Ian to have nothing to do with him. It's worth it. It's all worth it, the blood on his sleeve, the bruise on his cheek. For Mickey, he'd do it all again. He doesn’t want himself to have nothing to run to.

Mickey doesn’t know how to be different. He doesn’t know what he’s doing tomorrow or the next day or the next year. All he knows is that Ian smiles and he feels better. Ian talks to him and he feels like it matters. Ian wants him and he feels like he matters. He has nothing else but this, but Ian.

His fingers meet Ian’s hand, they fit together, and Ian smiles at him. And Mickey wants exactly what’s in front of him.


End file.
